Gary Wise from Las Vegas

Psychology of Poker – Book Review

Posted by admin on Jan 8, 2010

I just finished reading the “Psychology of Poker,” by Alan Schoonmaker. As an avid online and offline poker player and poker blogger, I read as many books as I can on the topic of poker. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest books ever written. This book really focuses on the psychology of the game and why players play like they do and why you play like you do. This book does not cover or basic skills.

The greatest thing about this book is that it skips the basics and focuses on the finer more subtle parts of the game. In my opinion, these are the things you need to know to be a champion. The book is full of original content and is written in a clear and concise fashion. The book is easy to understand and even though the author dives into some complex issues. I also like the chapter that discusses how to make strategic adjustments based on the types of players you are playing. The author has a Ph.D. in psychology and this is great because he is not like every other poker strategy expert, he gives you advice based on quantifiable scientific evidence.

The one drawback of the book is that it basically ignores the topic of online play. As online poker continues to become more popular, I am afraid this book will become less relevant.

In closing, I highly recommend this book for the intermediate to expert level poker player. What you learn will definitely improve your game.

Dan Keller is a poker fanatic and maintains a popular Poker Blog and also runs a Free Blog Directory site that lists all types of blogs, including poker.

5 Poker Skills to Improve Your Dating Success

Posted by admin on Jan 8, 2010

Poker involves much more than simply playing cards. Gaining information on your opponents without giving away your own ‘tells’, knowing when to raise the stakes – and of course knowing when to fold your hand are all essential elements of the game. This article lists 5 poker skills which have can improve your chances of successful dating, and can be easily applied to your future relationships too.

Skill #1 – Looking For Tells

The best poker players do not play their own cards – they play those of their opponents. To do this reading body language and preferred patterns of play to reveal when an opponent is weak or strong is an essential still. Likewise when dating, an self-centered approach – thinking only of your self – will often miss essential information about your date. Be aware of body language, and use this information to assess what your date thinks of you.

Skill #2 – Accepting Some Losses Along The Way

No poker player can win every hand. In fact a key aspect of the game is to get away from a loser as quickly and cheaply as possible. Dating is the same, it is simply not possible for every single date to be a resounding success. Accepting that you will face some losses (inappropriate dating partners) along the way will help you stay in a positive state of mind for when your ideal partner appears!

Skill #3 – Learning How To Spot A Bluff

Bluffing is a key poker skill, involving betting when you do not have a strong hand in the hope that you will win the pot. Unfortunately, the dating scene attracts a proportion of bluffers – people pretending to be something they are not in order to deceive unwitting dates. Like in poker, the best way to spot a dating bluffer is that the story does not add-up. Inconsistencies in both betting patterns and dating behavior can often reveal a bluffer!

Skill #4 – Getting The Most From A Winning Hand

Gamblers know that truly big hands only come around every so often, and ensure that they play in such a way as to maximize their returns when they do get dealt a monster. Singles likewise need to be aware that it is easy to let that ideal partner slip away in the hectic nature of today’s schedules. Play it like a poker-pro and ensure that you make an extra effort to bag that ideal partner, even if taking the lead is not usually your style.

Skill #5 – Finding A Game With Plenty Of Fish

An old poker adage says that if you can not spot the fish (referring to a bad player) within 20 minutes of play – then it is you who is the fish in this game. From the perspective of a dater it is the number of fish (as in potentially suitable dates!) which matter. If your site has few options which meet your criteria it may be time for a change of venue. After all, there may be the perfect catch waiting for you in a different pond!

Whether you enjoy a friendly poker home game or the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, the poker strategy tips at Sit N Go Planet will dramatically improve your game. With 100’s of quality articles covering many poker games and variations you should check out the home of Poker Tournaments Strategy now!

Article Source: Mark_R._Holland

The November Nine

Posted by admin on Nov 9, 2008

So, I bet you thought I’d forgotten I had this blog huh? I’m going to start out with my usual apology for lack of posts, but its been a really busy couple of months. Some of you know I’ve been heavily involved with my work with 60 Minutes, and most of you know I’ve been doing a lot of work regarding the World Series of Poker for ESPN. Between those, trips to Maccau, Uruguay, Seattle and Costa Rica and a few other projects its been a crazy… meg, screw it. I suck, we all know it.

So, right now, I’m sitting on a phush, comfy couch in the Penn and Teller theatre at the Rio hotel in Vegas. We finally have the final table of the main event under way after so many months of waiting and I’m finding myself plagued my mixed emotions. On the one hand, I’m obbviously glad to get this thing under way after so many months of writing about it. On the other hand, I’ve come to like every member of the November Nine, and it’ll be tough to see them take their turns leaving the spotlight they’ve enjoyed so much.

I’m keeping this short, since I’m still waking up and need caffeine. I’ll get some more thoughts up throughout the day, since I’ll have 10-14 hours to kill.

A Small Misunderstanding

Posted by admin on Aug 26, 2008

So, in my last post, I mentioned that I’d aquired a new nickname; Voltaire. A couple of the regulars, two brothers, started calling me that last two Sundays ago after I’d aquired a big stack and sat on it for a bit.

When I went to emergency poker Tuesday night, the talk was flying left and right and my new nickname was brought up to our regular host, who wasn’t present when the new tag was applied. He asked about it and I explained it had something to do with the fact that I make my living through the written word. Hell, I can’t say i know Voltaire’s work, but the fact i even know his name makes him someone I’m happy to be affiliated with. Thing is, I’m not.

A player named Dan, who knows both of the guys who gave me the name was forced to step in and explain. “They didn’t call you that because you’re a writer. They called you that because once you get chips, you tighten up and qon’t give them away. It’s like putting chips in a vault.” Then, as the whole room laughed, he added “Those guys don’t know who the fuck Voltaire is.” So there it is; the name is Vaultaire. It’s a sad turn of events, considering I can’t stop laughing at it.

Just another example of how poker brings together vastly different people to do something they commonly love to do.

Ask and ye shall recieve…

Posted by admin on Aug 24, 2008

One of the funny things about telling people you write about poker is variety of people who come up with the same response; “You should write about me!” Everyone has a story and everyone finds theirs to be the most riveting of all. Sometimes, they’re not entirely off base.

As I’ve reported here, I’ve been doing a lot more playing in recent weeks, going out 2-3 times a week for home games or the occasional back-of-the-store excursion. One thing I’ve promised people who have asked is that everything’s off the record, and since some of their names are high-profile, it seems to be appreciated but that promise leaves those parties without the fulfillment of glory. At what’s quickly become my regular home game, it took all of three weeks to go from “Thanks for not writing about this” to “Why aren’t you writing about this?” I almost sense my new nickname (Voltaire) is an ironic one commenting on the lack of text.

This past Tuesday, the home game in question convened for “Emergency poker”, which translates to “Our usual host was visiting his in-laws in the godforsaken wasteland that is Edmonton and needs a fix badly” I showed up around 11PM, a little tired on the tail end of a blue Jays game, expecting to stay for around 3-4 hours. I got home at 7AM.

That night, amongst the thousand plot twists that naturally occur in the context of a poker game (especially one where the players are mostly tight friends) there was the repeated request to see commentary on this particular game in this here blog. I complained that I couldn’t come through because the best chunks of drama are always intertwined with the involved character relationships, and the inability to name names would leave any recounting hollow. By the end of the night though, I’d been proven wrong.

It was around 1AM, with the plan to wrap up at 2AM, when a regular we’ll call ‘Pat’ showed up on the front door camera. Pat is a businessman –seemingly an affluent one–and he plays that way; the money has no value, and he has no qualms about getting his entire stack involved with a pot on his soberest days. This wasn’t one of them.

When Pat got to the table, it was pretty obvious he’d tipped back a few and he continued the trend once in his seat. Monstrous cans of Coors Light disappeared like Kaiser Soze and the language was a little more loose and colorful than normal with betting to match. Thing is, Pat found himself on a hot run of cards; everything he touched turned into a straight or a flush or better, and his $2,000 buy-in turned to $5,000 quickly.

Glances were exchanged around the table as this was going on, the recognition that Pat might be ripe for picking registering on every face. Home game or not, if they decide to sit down, its your goal to take their money. No one was as anxious to get a piece as our dealer, Justin. I’ve written about Justin here before; he’s the lone Asian regular in the game, but differentiates himself far more with his style of play and table captaincy. ‘Aggressive’ doesn’t encapsulate Justin’s game; he’s the ultimate LAG, seemingly calling any-sized bet with any two cards on the pre-flop for the distinct privilege of playing less-talented players in a post-flop game. His LAGiness is only matched by his mouth.

Justin’s probably been the most successful player in this game over its history (At least, that’s the sense I get. I’m a late addition and I’m dealing with very incomplete information), and that kind of accomplishment often inspires a sense of entitlement; Justin would never say it like this, but when he wins, there’s a sense of order to it; there’s no need to boast, because the best player won. Thing is, nothing is absolute in poker.

Justin and Pat have a history. They’ve only known one another for a few months, but theirs has become a fast friendship, moving away from the poker table. When they sit together though, two things inevitably result: 1) They play massive pots 2) Pat wins.

It’s inexplicable. Not to take anything from Pat; he plays with guts and glory. In the end though, in those last two rounds of play that seem to define a night’s play in the minds of those present, the two of them always mix it up in mid0four-figure pots, and Pat wins. Period. If he has one out going to the river, he’s hitting that out.

Tuesday night, there was a sense of desperation to Justin’s play that I was unaccustomed to seeing. With his style of play being what it is, he can have some pretty massive swings and this was a night where he was suffering from that reality. Normally, his strategy in this situation would be to raise the price of poker with stacks of black chips, the idea being that one big hand can make up for a lot of small ones. On this night though, things kept on getting worse as Justin kept going back on ‘the sheet’, with each buy-in a little bigger than the previous one.

The night wore on, Justin practically salivating as Pat’s stack grew and his eyelids lowered. Every time a player would announce they were heading out, it was met by Justin pleading them to stick around. Eventually though, it was down to four of us; our host Rob, me (I’d tried to leave a couple of times, but needed a ride home, was up and didn’t want to break the game up), Justin and Pat. Pat had taken multiple chunks out of Justin early, but now Justin was staging a mid-morning comeback. With sunlight seeping through the windows, he was eyeing a break even night with 4-5,000 in front of him and 9,000 in buy-ins.

Our host Rob was the first of the four to lose the war of attrition. Rob had taken some harsh beats all night, including a couple of massive suck outs by Pat (who else) and a finishing blow in which he got me to move in on the turn with four clubs and a gutshot only to have me hit the gutshot once the stacks had been measured. Rightfully pissed off, he flung his hand at the table and bellowed “I’m done” and made his way first over to his laptop and then out the door to get some early-morning bagels while we finished things off.

It was during our third ‘last round’ (a ritual in this game) that Justin got what he’d been asking for. Justin talks a lot at the table, telling people he’s coming for their chips. Pat is a favored target for the barbs. Pat’s no shrinking violet and does a good job of warding off the words, thanks in large part to his inevitably winning the biggest hand of each night at Justin’s expense. This time though, I thought Justin might be getting through. Pat was drunker than when he’d arrived, he’d started getting a little too loose with his calls and it was obvious in his demeanor that Justin’s stream of complaints regarding bad beats and the unfair turn of events were having an effect. He’d snapped back more times than could be counted.

I can’t say I remember all of the specifics, but Iknow that after some action on the preflop, the board came 6-7-Q. There was a round of betting, with Justin setting a trap and the turn was a king. Again Pat bet, again Justin –holding 66–made the call and the river came a 10. Now, Justin was ready to lower the boom; he bet out for $500 and hoped for a call. Instead, he got a surprising raise to $1,500.

Now, at this point, we go back to the title of this blog installment. Justin wanted a shot at that massive stack and got his wish and now was faced with the possibility of winning $1,000 more than he’d expected. Thing was, with Pat in his state, with Justin’s bankroll looking at some serious damage and with Justin ’s feeling of entitlement, he got greedy. Was he likely winning? Yes. Should he re-re-raise with the potential fifth set? Doesn’t seem like a good idea.

Thing is, it’s hard to recognize that when your brain is flooded by steam and images of high society. Justin thought for two long minutes before declaring a raise of his own. $2,000, serious money even to serious entrepreneurs. Pat sat looking miserable, wondering what he’d walked into, but finally, begrudgingly, made the call.

“Got a straight?” Justin asked, a hint of smile to his voice as if he knew that wasn’t the case. That was why the shock was so brutal when the answer came back “Yeah”. Pat turned over J-9 for the second nuts. Justin died in his chair.

The aftermath was brutal. Disbelief from all four of us, pierced only by Justin moaning as if afflicted by a sudden gunshot to the stomach. When the night was tallied up, he’d suffered one of the biggest losses in the game’s history. Pat wasn’t as jubilant as one might expect (the combination of fatigue and watching a friend suffer might have had something to do with that), more relieved that the onslaught was over than anything. Me, Iwas happy to finally have a lift (and leave up for my troubles). I did take a few things away from the experience though;

- No one deserves to win. It’s a tough lesson to heed sometimes, considering the hands, study and concentration some have put into poker while other haven’t. Still, when multiple people put up their cash, multiple people have the right to a chance at victory ,and no matter how strongly you believe ‘right and wrong’ should be involved, they aren’t. Every dog’s going to have his day. That’s the nature of the game.

- It’s dangerous to want something a little too much. Justin’s $2,000 bet at the end of that last hand was just greedy. When Pat put in that $1,500, was i putting him on a straight? No, but I recognized that there was enough out there (4 higher sets, three potential straights) that a raise was reckless. . This was a case of Justin seeing his Moby Dick and refusing to acknowledge the beast could win the fight. Lapses in judgment like that one, at that time of night, with those kinds of players, are going to be costly.

- Never forget that poker and friendship never mix. OK, I knew this one, and it shouldn’t be taken too literally because I value the friendships I’m forming at the table, but its never personal when you play a hand. I think Justin let it get that way.

- There’s a right way to lose. In the aftermath of each beat Justin took, there was an adjoining diatribe. When you go to a tournament, the kid gloves are off. Antagonize your opponents all you want, they knew what they were getting into when they put up their money.

A home game is a different monster. This is a situation where friends are getting together to enjoy a mutual interest, and while it’s still poker and it’s still money and it’s serious, that can’t be entirely discarded. Pat didn’t have a good time winning. He was annoyed during play and then subjected to the grim reality of what he’d done in a monologue afterwards, and that was unfair to him. If it were me in Justin’s shoes, it would have been a brutal turn of events. Frankly, I take a hit like the one he took that night and I’m in a world of hurt, which is part of the reason I don’t employ that style of play. Even still though, there’s a time to bitch and a time to hold in your fury, knock on the table and leave the room. A home game where you yourself made the decision to raise the stakes and paid the price for that is one of those times.

Justin got what he asked for; a chance to get even, a shot at redemption for his past late-night losses to Pat and big stack poker in a short handed, fatigue-riddled game.  Unfortunately, he asked on the same night at I was asked to write a little more about the home game of all home games. Sometimes, getting what you ask for isn’t getting what you want.

Freezing My Ass Off at the Bottom of the World

Posted by admin on Aug 8, 2008

If you’d told me on any day this year except this one that on the 7th of August, I’d be wearing a toque and a sweater, drinking my coffee black and still be freezing my ass off, I’d have laughed in your face. I’m a proud Canadian. As such, I should be impervious to the rigors of cold, especially at a time of year where over-ambitious air conditioning should be the only means through which frigid temperatures might be applied, am I right?

Incorrect.

Funny things happen to those pre-formed notions when you’re sitting at the bottom of the world. I’m a ten minute drive from Punta del Este, a small Ocean-side city in Uruguay. That’s Uruguay, as in ‘Uruguay is south of the equator’, covering a Latin American Poker Tour for PokerStars and ESPN. If it didn’t occur to you that it’s wintertime south of the equator, I wouldn’t be too ashamed. I forgot myself until I received an e-mail a few hours before departure advising ‘bring a sweater.’ It’s apparent now that long johns, scarf, mittens, snow shoes, electric blanket, turtlenecks and marshmallows for the open flame that I’m aspiring to find now would have been in order.

That’s right. You just read two paragraphs dedicated to my freezing my ass off. If Reinaldo Venegas –editor of Bluff en Espanol– hadn’t given me a hat to maintain some kind of body heat, I might not have managed even that much.

This is an unusual situation I’m in here. Punta del Este is one of South America’s most popular vacation spots from December to March, those months in which you couldn’t freeze magma here. In the off months, the city is more or less deserted, just one of the reasons Uruguay was so pleased to have Stars contribute to their August travel and tourism industry. Aside from the 400 poker players, ‘Stars staff and assembled media, the place is more or less deserted. We’re running amuck.

With the locals abandoning the area for warmer climes, there isn’t too much to do here. There’s a small casino, but playing poker there isn’t much of an option. The rake is 5% with no maximum, a fact that really hits you between the eyes when you see $120 raked from a single pot. The caliber of play in those games is low enough that it’s almost worth the fight against the house, except that the folks dealing the cards don’t know the game and watching them pass pots to the wrong player or take ten minutes to take that three-figure rake or deal 15 hands an hour is entirely tilt-inducing. I figured that out while getting rivered on a $2,500 pot last night*. For the players, the state of the cash games are extra incentive to dominate in the tournament.

* OK, let me say here that I’m very good at taking my beats. In this particular hand, I got all-in on the turn with the board A-5-10 Q while holding A-5 to my opponent’s A-K (and an all-in player’s K-10) only to get rivered by a king. I’m pretty sure I’d have been fine if the dealer didn’t literally take seven minutes to deal that river card, then try to pass me the pot after doing so. Throw in the ironic habit they have of yelling “professionalis!” after every tip. Even I have my limits…I got up.**

** Special thanks to uber-blogger Joe Posnanski, whose work inspired my use of the asterisk here.

The LAPT itself is proving a great success. The room was filled to capacity and then some to start the day. All manner of Latin American celebrities are here along with Humberto Brenes, Barry Greenstein, Greg Raymer, Brandon Cantu and a host of others. These folks are friends of mine, or at least friendlies (write enoug nice things about someone and they’re bound to like you on some level), but it’s nice to get a chance to see them outside the chaos of a WSOP or WPT. For them, a little $2,500 tournament is a nice excuse for a getaway and good times. It has a humanizing effect. Many good meals are bound to come.

The correlation between the pot size and the tournament entry definitely got me thinking. It’s been a good few weeks, with my poker profits somewhere in the $7,000 range, enough to show me that I’ve been learning through watching admidst my absence from the tables. I felt like a superior player in that game last night, yet here i sit on the sidelines while the faces from around that table play poker with the pros. Of course, in a couple of weeks, I’ll have hit a cold streak and will realize it was a ridiculous notion in the first place. Right?

Guess Who’s Playing Poker

Posted by admin on Jul 26, 2008

I’ve been playing nickel-dime poker for most of my life, but I didn’t discover Hold’em until around 2000. Some friends in the Magic: the Gathering community, spurned on by the revelations that Rounders brought to their lives, had invested themselves in limit hold’em, and when I heard they were pulling in a quarter- or half-million dollars a year playing online, I couldn’t help but invest myself in the latest of a string of games to obsess over that have dotted my life.

Sometime in late 2002, I started playing for a living. I mean, I was only grinding 5/10 limit online, playing anywhere from 2-4 tables in a time when people were only figuring out that you could play more than one, but the level of play was awful and i was happy to provide lessons. I made my living for the next couple of years doing that, but after Moneymaker came through, so too did legions of Moneymaker wannabes who were far more diligent about studying the game than I was. When my profit margin slimmed and my eventual business partner approached me about writing about poker, it was obviously time for a change in my life.

When I started wisehandpoker.com, I made the conscious decision to stop playing altogether. My game had gotten stale, I was getting bored of playing and it seemed obvious that in an industry where everyone was trying to get to the table, continuing to work while they got there was a sure way to get ahead. For the next three years, I barely played at all. When I was traveling with the WPT, I might have averaged about two hours a day all told, but I wasn’t playing when I wasn’t on the road; there was more work to do, and playing with rust barely seemed better than playing at all.

What’s the point of all this? It’s background to the revelations I’ve gone through as a player these last couple of months. When I made my way to Vegas for WSOP, I had no real plans to get back to active again, but many conversations, pledges of help from influential friends and a couple of otherwise slow night drew me back to the table. Now, I’m finding it tough to get away.

That night was preceded by my wondering aloud where I might find a low-stakes, tourist-laden gave full of drunkards late on a Friday night. I got a couple of good suggestions, but it was Dan Michalski of pokerati.com who gave me the answer that ultimately satisfied. “Paris” he explained “Doesn’t have a lot of tables and they have no parking. Parking is the key.”

I went to Paris, not a five-minute drive from the Rio, and took a chair in a $1-$2 game. On my first hand, I got paid off with aces. On my third hand, I flopped four tens, then showed them to amuse myself after the action folded on the turn only to find out I’d won a high-hand jackpot by showing. ‘Winning,’ I realized ‘is fun.’ That night, I walked out with $700 after less than six hours of play.

Since that night, there have been highs and lows. There was a night where I lost $930 in that same Paris $1-$2, mostly due to getting called on large turn bets by the same flush-drawing moron only to have him hit and check it down three times. There was a $1,500 win at the Caesar’s $2-$5 which included a hand where four players were all-in before my action on the turn with the board reading A-J-J 10 and me holding pocket aces (No, there were no pocket jacks to be found). All told, i finished the summer up about $5,000, a good payout for the time invested and the stakes I was playing. By the end of the summer, I’d decided to start taking my poker game more seriously.

Before the summer, my cousin Dave invited me to join him at a game he’d been a regular at for a couple of years. He sold it to me as ‘$5/$5, $500 buy-in. A fun game amongst young white collar professionals’. I went just before heading for Vegas, not realizing the $500 ‘buyin’ was just a way of giving the players a taste before the real buyins started later in the night. There’s usually a total of around $20K on the table. I was under-rolled and under-prepared for that reality. I lost $860, and while the offer was made to “put me on the sheet”, I knew I was outmatched, especially by a proudly Asian ‘kid’ (he’s a lot older than he looks) named Justin sitting to my left who repeatedly outplayed me post-flop. Embarrassed and seeking escape, I breached etiquette by leaving early and emptying a chair. I got a lift home from Dave, stopping at a bank machine to get him the extra $360 he’d provided for my one rebuy (My stack was at $140) and then thanking him with an apologetic tone to my voice, feeling as if I’d let him down as I left the car.

Last night, I was more prepared. I showed up with a couple of grand this time, understanding the game was a little beyond my roll, but at the same time weighing that with a) the potential for whales b) the importance of networking (there are some influential folks in this game) and c) the need to appease my newfound fever. I sat down between our host-who-will-not-be-named (a very good guy who asked that his name not be mentioned here) and a new player to the game. By the end of the night, the new player would drop nine grand.

All told, this was what a good home game should be. There was a beautiful dealer named Hazel who deflected random come-ons and locker room jokes like a pro. There was comaraderie, good jokes and good times, even enjoyed by the losers. There were three plasmas, sports talk, plastic cups full of this and that and I can’t say that a single person left without having had a good time, including the $9,000 man.

With my moderate skills reawakened in Vegas, my results were indicative. This time around, I felt confident identifying the fish and the sharks, spotted a couple of tells, kept tight when the game got really, really loose (5/5 blinds, raise pre-flop to $45, six callers??), withstood Justin’s mocking my refusal to play more than Iwanted and made $3,000. More than the money, the night was about continuing what I’d started in Vegas, getting myself started in Toronto and making some new friends along the way.

After the game, Hazel, Justin, a friend Steve (who plays like a pro but insists that he isn’t) and i went for some pancakes at 5:30AM, the right way to end a long night at the felt. We talked over hands, talked about my work a little bit and by the end of the meal, I’d been invited to head to another game tonight. I’m going back to the host-who-will-not-be-named’s place for another game on Sunday. The $9K man may be back too.

It’s good to win. There’s nothing quite like leaving a table feeling like you’ve earned the victory. I didn’t flop a set, straight or flush at any point, survived my making one truly atrocious play where I ignored an obvious read, costing me $700 early in the night. I survived the panic and steam that came with it and lived to see the other side. That’s a satisfying feeling.

I get the feeling I’ll be writing about Justin, Hazel and the others more and more in the weeks to come. Justin especially is insistant upon it, so as long as he keeps entertaining with his sharp tongue and lessons in post-flop play, I’ll be happy to oblige. If the wins keep piling on, you should reap the benefits if you keep coming around. I mean, I have to share my love of the game with someone, right?

G

Living Up To a Low Standard: Another Take to Come on the WSOP Ladies Event

Posted by admin on Jun 9, 2008

I don’t usually feel much pressure when it comes to writing good articles. I mean, I think I do a pretty solid job overall. I have a solid understanding of the languages of poker and English, I can string sentences together, they’re usually juxtaposed nicely… I get the job done, even if it’s a little late sometimes. Today though, I’m staring pressure straight in its manicured nails, its fashionable high-heeled boots and yes, occasionally its cleavage. I’m doing my best to avert my eyes though.

Last year, I wrote an article called ‘1268 Ladies and a Gentleman’ for ESPN. The first half of the article was about Allen Cunningham’s bracelet win; the second part was a scathing but obviously (or so I thought) tongue-in-cheek look at the ladies event. When it got published, people got pissed; one USA Today blogger, apparently unfamiliar with high-brow stylistic devices like sarcasm, called me “A good impression of Peter Griffin writing about poker” and not because Peter Griffin is a satirical character. Of course, it’s not like I didn’t expect it, considering it contained gems like;

“On top of the hugging, I heard all of the following at the tables;

• “You played that really well!”
• “Let’s all introduce ourselves!”
• “Where did you get that dress?”
• “Good luck, all-in!”
• “Three queens! That’s really good!”
• With one out in the deck; “You can still win!”
• Cat-like hissing

… I mean, is this a poker game or a cotillion? Imagine in your mind’s eye, a pudgy, balding, cynical, pompous man in his mid-thirties projectile vomiting. That’s me. Hi!”

**Teehee**

I have to admit, I still get a perverse little tingle when I read that, but a point I made in the aftermath was right on the money if I do say so myself:

“I felt I could write what I did because all things being equal between the sexes, the habits of women are just as susceptible to parody as those of men are, and to not treat them as such would be to suggest they aren’t equal.”

There you have it. Men and women, sharing the table, sharing the exposure to my sharp tongue. Thing is, I haven’t sharpened my tongue towards men in particular. I figure its about time that I rectify that.

After the final table’s done, I’m going to write something about just how stupid male poker players can be in relation to our maleness. I’ll throw in a little something about being one woman against nine guys in a locker room setting and how it feels to be on the receiving end of that (I was today for a brief moment).

Thing is, after the attention last year’s article got, I’ve gotten a lot of knowing looks in anticipation of this year’s. I hope I can live up to the low standard I set in ’07.

Gary Wise
gary@wisheandpoker.com

How not to prop bet: A clinic by example.

Posted by admin on Jun 8, 2008

Consider this a clinic in how not to gamble.

If you aren’t in the industry side of poker, you can’t imagine the chaos in the days leading up to WSOP. The players are all in R&R mode and mostly unreachable, everyone needs this article or that article or to set up a meeting or what have you, we’re all working out our rental situations if we’re coming from outside of Las Vegas…pretty much, every minute of the twenty hours a day you’re awake is occupied by three things at once.

With everything that’s going on, I’ve been caught unprepared on a couple of wagers. You may be asking ‘what that has to do with poker?’ but the reality is that when the object of the game is to win as many dollars as humanly possible, you do so with every means at your disposal; whether you’re holding aces, buying a percentage of a player in a tournament or making some ludicrous wager whose results are beyond your control, you do it.

The first of these came when, on an errand to buy a new audio recorder for interviews, I got a call from Andrew Feldman telling me that The Poker Edge had a last minute cancellation and would I be willing to come on (host Phil Gordon eventually announced “We mostly have you on because we couldn’t find another guest”)? I’m a publicity hog, so I happily agreed, and once on, we got to talking about the different storylines I’m watching coming into this year’s WSOP.

When I mentioned the emergence of Tom Dwan as perhaps the most anticipated rookie in WSOP history (That will likely change in 2010, when Annette Obrestad becomes eligible) host Phil Gordon put me on the spot, asking “What would you put the odds at that Dwan wins a bracelet?” I hadn’t really thought about it and my brain froze up and I blurted out a truly idiotic “um…3-1?” even Dwan, who is uber-confident with math to back it up, couldn’t give himself a better shot than 5-1.

Before I knew what was happening, Phil had a signed, sealed and delivered wager. Hell, I was so caught in the headlights that I didn’t bother to rescind…I mean, how to you refuse a host on his own show? The obvious answer is to say ‘no’, but at that point I was so beside myself for talking like a moron on a mainstream podcast that I wasn’t thinking straight any more. All I can hope for now is that Dwan makes me look like a genius.

Thing is, once I’d regrouped, I made what I think were a series of good enough bets to get what I think was an overall advantage in mine and Phil’s wagers. Phil is a bit of a cynic and I played on that. With regards to the Dwan bet, three lessons to learn from my idiotic example;

1) Don’t bet under duress.
2) Don’t let the other guy get your signature on the contract until you’re sure you want it there.
3) Try to actually think about your wagers before making them.

…all of which can be summed up by the always useful “don’t be a moron”

Here’s the rest of the wagers we made, though you’ll probably have more fun listening to the whole thing at espn;

Allen Cunningham to win a bracelet 5-1 – Allen’s won bracelets in each of the last three years and five years in total in the 2000’s. Are you really going to tell me he’d only win a bracelet once if you played out this WSOP five times? This wager seems especially brilliant now in light of the odds Phil Ivey’s been taking on himself. Ivey’s expressed a similar confidence in Allen, reportedly offering 1.1-1 on one of the tandem taking a tournament this year.

Daniel Negreanu to win a bracelet 13-2
Jesus Ferguson to win a bracelet 13-2
Phil Hellmuth to win a bracelet 13-2
Barry Greenstein to win a bracelet 13-2
Michael Binger to win a bracelet 13-2

Keep in mind, these bets were being made before the series started. When Phil offered me the chance to take any five guys, I didn’t know whether Ivey would be playing much at all. The five I chose were pretty safe picks.

A year ago, Negreanu was taking bets at 5-1, Jesus and Barry were literally multi-tabling live tournaments in their desire to get themselves the jewelry and Binger was tying a WSOP record with eight cashes in one year. Thus far, only Binger has managed so much as a final table finish from this group, but with the odds where they are, I’m still happy with these bets. If any one of them wins a bracelet, I’m close to break-even for the series.

WSOP main event to have 6400 players – over
WSOP main event to have 7000 players – over
$50,000 HORSE event to have 140 players – over

I think its obvious in my writing that I’m pro world series and more or less an optimist, and I don’t like the 400 point drop the US stock market took yesterday, but I still believe in the growth of the main event. Event #2 drawing 3929 players just left me feeling like people aren’t stopping their hobbies, and with the glowing reports that the Series has gotten (Jeffrey Pollack went so far yesterday as to call this ‘the summer of love’) you have to think people will be drawn here. I admit, I set the HORSE event bar a little too high (I think 138 is about right), but I think I should do well here.

My other wagering came in the form of ESPN’s fantasy pool. Each year, Feldman gathers his writers, colleagues and a few pros to put together a fantasy draft for public consumption. This year’s roster was Andrew, Gordon, Lance Bradley, Bernie Lee, Peter Feldman, Gavin Smith, Bill Edler, Mark Seif, Daniel Negreanu, Joe Sebok and Steve “Chops” Preiss. My logic going in said non-Americans would prove valuable since this entire crew is US-based.

The problem was that from May 18-21 I was taking care of last minute travel details, May 21-25 I was in Costa Rica covering the LAPT there, May 25-28, I was recovering and writing like a madman…in other words, I didn’t do a lick of preparation. To make matters worse, I was doing the draft on my shitty cell phone while en route to pick up Bradley from the airport. Where there was construction. On my brain.

In the end, I think I drafted a very solid team, but it would obviously have been better if I’d spend 15 frikkin’ minutes actually looking at who was out there and discerning some order of value. In the end, here’s who I got:

Jesus Ferguson (too early)
Michael Binger (good value pick)
Humberto Brenes (too early…could have waited a round)
David Singer (w00t!*)
Tom Schnieder (too late. What a sick pick)
Alex Kravchenko (about right)
Minh Ly
Daniel Alaei

* I seldom use internet slang like w00t! If I do, you’re safe assuming it’s me mocking people who use internet slang like w00t!

Daniel, who missed the draft, went pseudo-ballistic when he saw the team we drafted him based mostly on the ‘Daniel always drafts Asians’ principal. I’m not going to lie, I had a lot of fun suggesting players like Mao Tse Tung and Buddha. Still, fair is fair, and we let him drop a bunch of players for undrafted free agents. When he dropped Kenny Tran, I scooped him up, replacing Minh.

It’s a solid team. Most of my guys play games other than hold’em and have past WSOP success. Still, in just about every round, there was a pick that made me think ‘shit, I should have taken him.’ That can’t be a good thing.

I just made one last wager last night, by the way. Lance bet me at even odds that john Murphy will win a bracelet by event #10 in 2011. I think he’ll be asleep when he gets blinded off.

OK, time to fess up. The start of this entry was a incomplete article I never got submitted, but it seemed like a fun topic and a shame to let good work go to waste. There you have it, My blog is a receptacle for past failures and the incompleteness of my being. Call it a collection of my flaws. At least though, when my flaws include making wagers without thinking them through, maybe you can learn a thing or two from my stupidity.

I’m skipping the links today because I need to get this up. I’ll include them in my next installment. If you really, really want to read my stuff though, go to worldseriesofpoker.com and you’ll find it. I’ll be here holding my breath.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

The Meeting of Minds and the Mouth: Only at WSOP

Posted by admin on Jun 6, 2008

In case you haven’t figured it out, the personalities of poker intrigue me a lot more than the cards. That’s not to say that I don’t love the game, that poker isn’t a never-ending-question-without-any-true-answer-keeping-us-in-agony-as-we-try-to-discern-the-true-secrets-of-the-puzzle-that-we-each-like-to-think-exist-despite-evidence-to-the-contrary.

There was a time when I was a solid online player. That time was a four-year period from 2000-2004 in which I played online poker for a living. That was a time when solid was good enough. In the years since, solid was good enough to lose your shirt. When I started into the industry, the plan was for me to write strategy based on those four years experience. I look back now, knowing the people I know and the things I do and find the concept laughable. Back then though, I just felt like there were so many people writing about the strategy of the game and that it was better left to the peeps who’d been doing it for thirty years. That’s why I started carving this little player-profile-and-poker-history niche of mine. That and the fact the personalities were –and still are—absolutely fascinating to me.

I like to describe the collected individuals of poker…or at least, the old poker…as cowboys and gangsters, even though it’s not entirely fair. For a white upper-middle class kid like myself, some of the shenanigans these guys get into escape the realm of possibility. Working with them allows me to live vicariously for a bit each day. During the World Series of Poker, this holds even truer with my position allowing me to stroll between tables and watch the action unfold.

Mike Matusow is one of those characters. The dude is absolutely nuts, absolutely obnoxious and absolutely honest. I’ve interviewed him at least a half-dozen times and he couldn’t guess my name in a hundred tries, but I like him for the simple fact that he doesn’t know anything but the truth. Last year, he and I turned an interview into a shouting match when he, off of his medication and feeling a little bitter and ballistic, went off on Harrah’s about this thing, that thing and the other thing. To tell you how sound his logic was throughout the conversation, he attacked a man in a Mr. Peanut costume about thirty minutes later.

Mike’s been changing of late. He just won his weight loss prop bet with Ted Forrest, in which he had to lose 60lbs in a year. He’d lost six as of January first and the race to the finish line left his body emaciated. I thought maybe that was why he was a little more collected than normal when I interviewed him a few days ago; His body couldn’t handle the lunacy.

Matusow’s been back on the road to strengthening himself since clearing the final weigh-in and I heard him shout from his table some hundred yards away more than once tonight, but the true test came when Jeffrey Pollack entered the room with Harrah’s new owner David Bonderman.

I meet a lot of very, very wealthy people, so shaking hands with Bonderman wasn’t that big of a deal for me, but as the Commissioner (a guy I’m pleased to call a friend, even if our relationship is a professional one) left the stage leading his new boss on a tour of the goings on, Matusow bellowed out “JEFFREY!” and made a beeline. Talk about your potential disasters; if Matusow confused Bonderman for Mr. Peanut the WSOP could have been retired in five minutes.

Before the realization of the potential this meeting held hit Jeffrey’s face, I was calling out to him, asking if I could listen in. I mean, can you blame me? The richest man in the room meeting a guy who thrives on being broke (I think Matusow is one of the best players in the world when he’s broke, mediocre otherwise); the owner of WSOP meeting the most unabashed of all its detractors.

Jeffrey whipped out a finger, pointed it at me and said “No! You stay right there!” the finger guiding me back to my chair where I sat chastised and laughing my ass off. I’m always happy to co-operate and I really wasn’t going to report on it anyways and the way it happened so quickly left me amused.

They had their talk and it was surprisingly civil. That’s because a) Matusow is on his meds and b) he only had good things to say about how the series was going thus far. That’s how smoothly things have been running; the guy who loves to tear the shit out of Harrah’s could only muster the equivalent of a ‘good job’, even going so far as to tell me afterwards that Jeffrey was “a good man. A great man.” I’m still in shock.

Getting back to my original point, this was a fun moment for me because of the personalities involved and the history of their interactions. Mouth and the Commish have had their differences, but here was a well-run event bringing them together under what would have under any other scenario been a beyond-stressful situation. Its nice to see things going well enough to bring even these polar opposites together. At least, it is for this upper-middle class white kid.

On to the links;

- Over on worldseriesofpoker.com, I have an article up on David Singer’s win.

- Also on that website, a look at the overwhelming approval from the players regarding event #8 – $10,000 mixed hold’em world championship.

- The Wise Hand of the Day on PokerListings sees Tom Dwan take a big hit in event #8

- The Wise Hand of the Day on wisehandpoker.com looks at Theo Tran’s second final table appearance of this WSOP.

maintained by: BJM for Gary Wise